maxheck:The NRA may once have served a useful purpose, but I can guarantee you that they do not give a single damn about the 2nd amendment.

The purpose of the NRA is to further making money for the NRA.

CS,B:

I used to have a client in the early 2000's that rented space in the NRA's Fairfax headquarters. The lobby is pretty much what you'd expect, lots of flintlocks and crying eagle tchotckies on display.

Since I'm a smoker, I ended up spending a fair amount of time out in the smoking area, (ahem) shooting the breeze with other people who worked in the building, and I got into some conversations with mid-level guys from the NRA.

They were completely unabashed about the fact that they made up bullshiat crises in order to get their members riled up and sending in money. I didn't know the term "Overton Window" at the time, but that was exactly what they were pushing, and these guys were proud of it, and quite happy to talk about it with some random guy in the smoking area.

What amazed me was the guys saying this didn't care... at all. Yeah, I was just some long-haired IT geek who worked up on 4, but so far as they knew I could have been Libby McLibberton, star investigative reporter for the Gun Grabber Gazette.

I can see the purpose for something like the NRA. The ACLU handles all the other amendments, and of course hunters / shooters / collectors can have a lobby just as dentists and stamp collectors can.

But that's not what the NRA is about. The NRA is about making money for the NRA.

Isn't that the same for every pressure group? Do you think that Greenpeace would ever say that anything was going well with the environment. Impending doom keeps their expense accounts full.

HotWingConspiracyIt's different here because they're actively cheering for and working towards a disaster.

Oh come on. I'm sure those people are out there in small numbers, but I think probably in more cases it comes down to people caring for their families and their communities. I've picked up some primitive survival skills, and keep enough food to feed myself and ammo handy to feed my rifle, for the same reason that I learned basic first aid skills and carry insurance. May never need it, but it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Everyone's got their own risk management calculations, but frankly I'm happy that there are people out there doing stuff like stockpiling food. If that one in a million event does occur like it did in N'awleans, more people will survive than might have otherwise, which makes me feel a bit better even if I'm not one of them (and I do plan to be).

Takeshi6400:I've never quite understood this American obsession with preparing for impending disaster. I've never seen it in another country. I've met educated, rational people who have thousands of rounds of ammunition and months supplies of food for some massive disaster. I know we all watch The Walking Dead and think, "that would be awesome," but it's not going to happen.

Eh, it's just that nutcase fantasy of "Apocalypse! The holiday during which you can kill people and take their things!" Because these nutcases always say "Law enforcement will be the first to go."

jso2897Where I grew up, these were just things you knew - it wasn't associated with any sort of political or social stance, and people didn't think of possessing those skills as an alternative to keeping civilization functioning.

Yeah, in some ways I envy that kind of upbringing... it's fun stuff. Like an increasing number of Americans, I'm a city boy, born and raised. Flintknapping, trapping, plant identification, and making fire are definitely not things we tend to pick up in the course of our daily lives unless we're lucky enough to find really good scout troops.

mrexcess:jso2897: Honestly, I used to think that was the case. Then I saw the kind of farking madhouse New Orleans turned into during Katrina. Cops randomly shooting families, HAM radio operators becoming the C3 infrastructure for rescue crews, thousands of people living in a stadium with insufficient food and sanitation facilities. I'm not saying its likely to happen again or that we didn't learn lessons, but after seeing that I'll never quite look down on "preppers" as a class the way I might have otherwise.

/learning primitive survival skills is fun and potentially useful in all kinds of situations//less so learning them from a DC lobbyist

Katrina wasn't really as bad as all that; plus, it was the kind of disaster that the "preppers" wouldn't have been much help with. Remember that the vast majority of New Orleans residents successfully evacuated before Katrina hit, which is about 90% of all you need to do to "prep" for any disaster: Listen to the radio and do what you're told. Don't think you can "ride out" a storm, and don't try to fight a wildfire yourself. For the rest, Katrina was as much a failure of imagination and leadership as it was response. Once the levees failed, there was no reason at all people couldn't have been evacuated by boat; but everyone sat around waiting for someone else to take control.

But prepping for a disaster is only useful if you're prepped for the right kind of disaster. Having lots of guns and canned food would have been useless in New Orleans when half the city was under water and what you needed was a flat-bottomed boat and a pair of oars. I know plenty of people who have their furniture bolted to the walls in case of earthquake...but have no idea how to get their cars out of their garages if the power were to go out. You need to have more than just gunz to survive.

Takeshi6400:I've never quite understood this American obsession with preparing for impending disaster. I've never seen it in another country. I've met educated, rational people who have thousands of rounds of ammunition and months supplies of food for some massive disaster. I know we all watch The Walking Dead and think, "that would be awesome," but it's not going to happen.

The US usually deals with one major natural disaster annually, and a crap-load of local ones.

Doesn't Texas get more tornadoes per year than any other nation? There are places in Alabama with two hurricane seasons.

Nadie_AZ:"this book is a must have for all families," Nelson wrote. "although Wayne LaPierre is not a survivalist he certainly fires on all cylinders in this must have book. how many people even think to carry water and food and maybe even clothing and blankets in their car trunks? when you are traveling across country what do you look for when pulling off the interstate in an unfamiliar city? what do you do if there is a knock on the door in the middle of the night with a stranger asking for help?"

Uh. I shoot them and claim a burglar was trying to break in .... cordially?

My local government recommends carrying those items in my car trunk. They recommend having a Go Bag. They have links to FEMA and the Red Cross. Why is it that Teatards think they're the only people who even consider these things?

mrexcess:jso2897Where I grew up, these were just things you knew - it wasn't associated with any sort of political or social stance, and people didn't think of possessing those skills as an alternative to keeping civilization functioning.

Yeah, in some ways I envy that kind of upbringing... it's fun stuff. Like an increasing number of Americans, I'm a city boy, born and raised. Flintknapping, trapping, plant identification, and making fire are definitely not things we tend to pick up in the course of our daily lives unless we're lucky enough to find really good scout troops.

Well, as I see it, part of the reason that kids don't learn these things is that parents (and everybody else) are so damn fear-driven these days, Even after we left the farm, and I became a "city boy", my dad and I continued to spend every vacation in the outdoors, camping , hiking, fishing, etc. - and I was allowed to take risks, and play with dangerous things.Having those skills has always been a good thing - but turning it into a "movement" doesn't seem, to me, to be so great - especially with all the fear-mongering, and unrealistic rhetoric I hear issuing from many quarters of that movement. Especially when too much fear and paranoia are a big part of the problem to begin with.

Don't disagree with that at all. Guns are a fairly versatile and useful tool, but no more than that. From my perspective, survival is a risk management problem - start with the most capability you're comfortable with providing for the lowest cost that gives you maximum applicability in the widest variety of situations, and work your way down the list until you're comfortable. For most people I'd think that a few gallons of water, some dried or canned food, a flashlight, and a crank radio would be sufficient. Then you've got dorks like me who like the mental challenge and communing with nature that comes with making lean-tos from foliage, fires out of sticks, improvised sutures and wound dressings, trapping and hunting, and knapping flint... just 'cuz.

Isn't that the same for every pressure group? Do you think that Greenpeace would ever say that anything was going well with the environment. Impending doom keeps their expense accounts full.

Maybe, but I would say that many organizations actually do have core principles and are able to care about whatever they were founded on other than "mo money," but that wasn't the impression I got here. I don't even like Greenpeace, but would say they have a bunch of people who give a damn about the cause.

It's like MADD or the Susan J. Komen Foundation. They started out with the best of intentions but became a political, money-making animal more interested in it's own bank account than whatever cause it was supposed to represent.

I guess you'd have had to be there, but before that experience I was neutral about the NRA... I came away with a VERY strong impression that they're just a money pump and some of them are even willing to brag about how strong their suction is.

jso2897Having those skills has always been a good thing - but turning it into a "movement" doesn't seem, to me, to be so great - especially with all the fear-mongering, and unrealistic rhetoric I hear issuing from many quarters of that movement. Especially when too much fear and paranoia are a big part of the problem to begin with.

I'd have to agree with that. Watching Doomsday Preppers or frequenting some wildnerness survival forums on the internet is an eye opener in this regard. People are getting into this stuff over what seems to me like some really unrealistic concerns that occasionally border on the downright sad. I feel bad for people who spend a lot of time worrying about massive economic collapse, pulling their spouses and kids out of bed to run monthly "bug out drills", spending college fund money on building bomb shelters. On the other hand, whatever floats their boat I guess, and at least if there's a hurricane/flood/disaster they'll be there to assist their family and community and come out looking heroic.

Gyrfalcon:the obvious fact that if you pull off the interstate in an unfamiliar city, YOU will be the stranger knocking on the door in the middle of the night asking for help? These poor freaks are wildly missing the fact tha

They were completely unabashed about the fact that they made up bullshiat crises in order to get their members riled up and sending in money. I didn't know the term "Overton Window" at the time, but that was exactly what they were pushing, and these guys were proud of it, and quite happy to talk about it with some random guy in the smoking area.

What amazed me was the guys saying this didn't care... at all. .

Like another poster said, that's not unusual. Knew lobbyist & paid staff who worked for Moveon.org and a few other similiar ogranization. It was funny listening to her say the same thing about them. She once stat "Hell, they even believe the stuff they're saying, they're just trying raise money."

Takeshi6400:I've never quite understood this American obsession with preparing for impending disaster. I've never seen it in another country. I've met educated, rational people who have thousands of rounds of ammunition and months supplies of food for some massive disaster. I know we all watch The Walking Dead and think, "that would be awesome," but it's not going to happen.

It's a good investment. On the day that the Sandy Hook Massacre happened, the value of my stockpiled ammo went up an insane amount. Hell, you can't even get ammo COMPONENTS now. Six cents for a fecking PRIMER???

Takeshi6400:I've never quite understood this American obsession with preparing for impending disaster. I've never seen it in another country. I've met educated, rational people who have thousands of rounds of ammunition and months supplies of food for some massive disaster. I know we all watch The Walking Dead and think, "that would be awesome," but it's not going to happen.

Marcus Aurelius:We used to have REAL books when I was a kid.[flag.blackened.net image 160x208]

That book is full of misinformation.For a real survival book read the SAS survival manual. It teached you a little bit of everything need to survive. Plus it teaches you how to make traps. Also medicinal herbs. As in can be used to treat inflammation, bleeding, and infection.

Takeshi6400: I've never quite understood this American obsession with preparing for impending disaster. I've never seen it in another country. I've met educated, rational people who have thousands of rounds of ammunition and months supplies of food for some massive disaster. I know we all watch The Walking Dead and think, "that would be awesome," but it's not going to happen.

Zombie porn, the Eschaton, "Red Dawn" and Armageddon all have this one common theme.

The people most interested are the people who think that they're most prepared / virtuous and will be in better shape than all those poor saps who didn't prepare by either stockpiling or getting right with whatever God.

I have no doubt whatsoever that there were people talking about the end times in 10,000BC, and that there was some guy named Og who was convinced that he'd be laughing while everyone else died in the coming sabre-toothed-tiger apocalypse because they didn't invest in fire. It seems to be a common human trait.

Takeshi6400: I've never quite understood this American obsession with preparing for impending disaster. I've never seen it in another country. I've met educated, rational people who have thousands of rounds of ammunition and months supplies of food for some massive disaster. I know we all watch The Walking Dead and think, "that would be awesome," but it's not going to happen.

Zombie porn, the Eschaton, "Red Dawn" and Armageddon all have this one common theme.

The people most interested are the people who think that they're most prepared / virtuous and will be in better shape than all those poor saps who didn't prepare by either stockpiling or getting right with whatever God.

I have no doubt whatsoever that there were people talking about the end times in 10,000BC, and that there was some guy named Og who was convinced that he'd be laughing while everyone else died in the coming sabre-toothed-tiger apocalypse because they didn't invest in fire. It seems to be a common human trait.

"There is no doubt about Martin Luther's marriage, but the rumour about his wife's early confinement is false; she is said however to be pregnant now. If there is truth in the popular legend, that Antichrist will be born from a monk and a nun (which is the story these people keep putting about), how many thousands of Antichrists the world must have already!" -Erasmus

Responding to rumours prompted by the marriage of Martin Luther, in a letter to François Dubois (13 March 1526), as translated in The Correspondence of Erasmus : Letters 1658 to 1801, January 1526-March 1527 (1974) edited by Charles Garfield Nauert and Alexander Dalzell, p. 79Paraphrased variant: They say that the Antichrist will be born of a monk and a nun. If so, there must already be thousands of Antichrists.

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maxheck:The people most interested are the people who think that they're most prepared / virtuous and will be in better shape than all those poor saps who didn't prepare by either stockpiling or getting right with whatever God.

I have no doubt whatsoever that there were people talking about the end times in 10,000BC, and that there was some guy named Og who was convinced that he'd be laughing while everyone else died in the coming sabre-toothed-tiger apocalypse because they didn't invest in fire. It seems to be a common human trait.

I enjoy pulling the trigger. I work to support my addiction, though since I gave up my SOT status, it's a lot harder to pay bills. Of course, I no longer have to worry about getting my doors kicked in because I pissed off a bureaucrat, so it's got it's benefits. I've put away stuff for my kids, and their kids, and their kids, to the point that if I retired and spent 8 hours a day at the range, I STILL couldn't expend all of the ammo I've hidden away. The saddest thing I've seen recently? A "sworn" LEO who acted as if I'd publicly fellated him in the town square at noon when I sold him a brick of .22LR for $40. Sad, sad days...

tallguywithglasseson:dittybopper: OH MY GOD! It's *HORRIBLE* that he would write something like that! The man is obviously an inhuman monster!

No kidding! And subby not only wants to to grab guns but also burn books. Congrats, subby, you're Double Hitler.

Wayne LaPierre is a patriot doing his level best to educate people about the real world threats that necessitate large arsenals in every home.Additionally, he's a strong advocate for ridding us of the scourge of violent video games -- the real cause of mass shootings.

You'd think everyone would be more grateful. It's truly sad he's so misunderstood.